David Sartin Jr. already knew the price of robbing banks with someone else’s face. In 2018, he was sentenced to 10 years and one month in federal prison for five robberies committed in Texas in 2016, always wearing the same disguise: a realistic old-man mask.
His supervised release began in May 2025. According to the federal indictment, it didn’t take long for him to return to his old ways. On August 24, 2026, a man wearing an old-man mask, a hat, a jacket, and gloves entered a Valley Bank branch in Largo, Florida, and demanded money from a teller, warning her not to include any dye packs. He had arrived by bicycle after leaving his vehicle parked nearby. On September 15, he allegedly took 2.554 dollars from a Truist Bank in St. Petersburg.
The searches helped complete the case. Investigators recovered the bicycle, clothing resembling what appeared in the videos, an old-man mask with gray facial hair, gloves stained with black paint, and a fake gun. A second mask and a notebook dated January 1, 2021, with Sartin named as the author and titled “God’s Best friend is a Bank Robber!”, turned up at another home where Sartin occasionally stayed.
Sartin, 40, faces two federal bank robbery charges, each carrying a sentence of up to 20 years in prison. For now, these are only allegations: there has been no conviction for these new incidents.
